The Lenny Leggo Show
' The Lenny Leggo Show' is a YouTube Comedy/Animated Sitcom/Social Commentary series created by YouTuber Aaron M.I (credited as Aaron Cosby. The show serves as a non-canonical reboot to the now discontinued "The Lenny Lego Show", which ran from 2011 to 2015. The series debuted on June 22nd 2016, with the episode Unhappy Birthday Martin Anderson. History The Lenny Leggo Show was first announced in March 2016, as a reboot of the now discontinued series "The Lenny Lego Show" that ran from December 2011 to December 2015. There were plans to continue the series for an eleventh, and possible subsequent, seasons for 2016, however, by January 2016, The Lenny Lego Show had been put on hiatus indefinitely, as a brand new animated format was to become the standard for the show, replacing the practical figurines that had been used for, until that point, the entire show's run. As part of the changes, all copyrighted material The Lenny Lego Show contained would either be scrapped or replaced with subsequent Lenny Leggo episodes. By February 9th 2016, to coincide with the show's originally planned name change and redesign, Lenny Leggo had officially severed all ties with Lego and later announced that it had also severed ties with all other copyrighted materials as well. By February 2016, it was uncertain if The Lenny Lego Show would continue as an animated continuation, with all animated episodes to remain canon to the older, practical prop episodes (an explanation was to be given in the Season 11 premiere's prologue had this been the route taken). However, it was also being considered to simply end the show's timeline altogether and start a new series with no continuity to The Lenny Lego Show at all. On March 5th 2016, The Lenny Lego Show was officially canceled, ending the series, and plans for an eleventh season were scrapped. What became The Lenny Leggo show is what would have been The Lenny Lego Show's eleventh season. An edited audio segment still exists from an unfinished episode for what was also supposed to be, at one point, The Lenny Lego Show's eleventh season, created prior to the animation conversion. The audio is for a scene in which Lenny is awoken in the middle of the night by a man knocking at his door step. The audio depicts him tripping and stubbing his toe over various objects before finally reaching the front door. Because this scene was to emphasis the darkness of Lenny's house in the middle of the night (hence causing him to trip over various objects), there is no accommodating video to the edited audio. This audio will be recycled for a future "Leggo" episode. Synopsis The Lenny Leggo Show is set in Skyler City California, a fictitious suburb of Los Angeles. The universe that the show takes place in consists of a mix between humans and anthropomorphic animals. However, not every animal in the Lenny Leggo universe is anthropomorphic, so there is a complete lack of consistency between anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic characters. Some characters even own non-anthropomorphic animals as pets: Mrs. Diney, for example, owns a non-anthropomorphic pet dog, despite being an anthropomorphic character herself (her species is Tyrannosaurus Rex). Most brand names in the show are renamed versions of their real-life counterparts: for example, Ncdonald's is The Lenny Leggo Show's version of "Mcdonald's". Other examples include Kepsi, the show's version of "Pepsi", APS, the show's version of "UPS", and Butterfly Inc, the show's version of "Caterpillar Inc". As with shows like "The Simpsons" and "Arthur", characters from The Lenny Leggo Show do not age as the show progresses, so their characteristics regarding their ages remain consistent throughout the show's run. There are, however, instances where a character's age may be mentioned, usually when a character age is central to a particular story-line: for example, Martin Anderson will be turning 30 years old in the Season 2 premiere, 30 Years Young, where he overcomes the depression of turning 30 years old. Characters ,Harvey Duncan, Lenny Leggo, Jonah Flenderson,Randy Stallone, and Martin Anderson ]] Lenny Q. Leggo, the main character of the series, resides with his wife Katrina Leggo in Skyler City California, a fictitious suburb of Los Angles California. He works for C.S.S. Studios in downtown Los Angles. Jonah B. Flenderson is the show's comic relief. He is an overweight, clumsy, ignorant, and extremely unintelligent firefighter who is "employed" (actually just a student) with the Skyler City fire department. Martin Anderson is Jonah Flenderson's cousin and roommate. He is the one that gets "stuck with all the bad luck" (especially having to live with his bum cousin every single day). Harvey Duncan is an anthropomorphic mammoth who is widely believed to be the last remaining mammoth on Earth. Refusing to believe this, he has established his own mammoth life research organization called P.U.F.T.E" Prevent Us From Total Extinction. Due to Harvey's sheer arrogance, self pride, and stubborness, his company is a complete and total embarrassment. Randy Stallone, the "nerd", is an anthropomorphic gray Percheron stallion. He is obsessed with 70's lifestyle and decor, particularly the "hippie" movement. Katrina Leggo is Lenny's wife and also a main character. She is generally very sweet and nice, unless her husband Lenny is somehow acting up, or really if anyone begins to annoy her. Episodes main article List of Lenny Leggo Episodes Presently, there are four episodes of The Lenny Leggo Show, with a fifth in the works. Outtakes Beginning with Death on Behalf of my Wife's Birthday, the fourth episode of Season 1, audio recordings for incorrectly read dialogue will be preserved for outtakes, which will be released in a full collection after the conclusion of the season. For the first three episodes, artificial outtakes will be created, though some artificial ones may also be created for later episodes as well. Production Production on the show's first episode, Unhappy Birthday Martin Anderson, took four months to complete, as every single character and backdrop required for the episode had to be created prior to the show, as well as various objects, such as cars. All characters, backdrops, and props are completely drawn out from scratch using Microsoft Paint. Writing Each episode of The Lenny Leggo Show is scripted. Scripts are not written in advance for each season, rather, a script for the next episode begins the day after, or in some cases on the same day of the previous episode's release. A rough draft takes approximately 24 hours to complete, and about an hour to revise. An average of 1-3 revisions take place before audio recording begins. Recording Audio recording usually begins on the same day a script goes through its final revision, sometimes almost immediately after. The number of takes for each line is anything but consistent. Many of the lines are perfected after only a single take: when this happens, recording moves on to the next line, however, some lines do require several takes to successfully execute (the record number of takes required for a single sentence is presently for Contributions, one of the show's 30 second ads: Martin Anderson's line, "This isn't an excuse to cheat on your new calorie limit, is it?", took 36 takes to successfully complete). The entire script is recorded at once, in what is known as the "rough recording". During the editing process, several pick up recordings are executed, which is done to amend mistakes, fix plot holes, or re-record lines that should have gone though an additional take earlier. In total, each episode has an average total of 75 minutes worth of recordings. Animation The Lenny Leggo Show is animated in a 2-Dimensional "paper cut out" like format and is, currently, presented in the 16:9 aspect ratio at 60 frames per second. The show is created and animated entirely with computer-software, including Vegas Movie Studio 13.0, Microsoft Paint (Version 1511 for Windows 10), and Adobe Photoshop CC 2015. Backdrops are created, completely from scratch, in MS Paint in an original ratio of 1360 by 590 pixels. The backdrops are somewhat narrowed down when placed into Vegas Movie Studio in its 16:9 aspect ratio, so the backdrop is never seen in full at one time. Today, it takes an average of 1-2 hours to complete each backdrop: originally, backdrops would usually take a minimum of a day, sometimes up to three to four days, to complete. Characters are also created with MS Paint. Each character, when first created, is drawn out in their standard "standing" position, with their arms to their sides facing the audience. From there, additional files of detail-altered character portrayals are created for various positions that may be necessary for a given episode: for example, a character talking on the phone requires at least five additional files, including them holding the phone up to their head, and various positions of bringing the phone back down and into their pocket, or sometimes for the other direction. When first created, there is a default white background behind the actual character in the file (except for characters like Buzz Tarco that wear white attire: in this case, a gray background is used instead to separate the background from the character). Using Photoshop, the background is edited out to create a PNG file. This becomes the actual file for use in the video editor. The files are then placed, cropped, and animated all within Vegas Movie Studio 13. Each character has two file folders, the "rough" folder, the original art conception files with the backgrounds, and the "final" or "finished" folder, the one holding the same files as the first folder, but as PNG files without the background. As the show has progressed, there has been a steady increase in the use of facial expressions, aside from the mouths, which has included eye language and will also incorporate other facial elements, such as eye brown raising. While the show is primarily animated, it has also included snippets of live-action footage as well. Examples include "The Biffy Martona Chronicle", when Jonah Flenderson is seen watching "The Three Stooges" short "Disorder in the court". Another example includes "National Jonah Flenderson Day I", which Jonah Flenderson teaches the audience about the power and necessity of more laws to restore order to the world: this is accompanied by live-action scenes of buildings collapsing, as well as army tanks. In 2017, following the conclusion of Season 1, all main character designs, as well as a few other existing character designs, will be refurbished for Season 2. Later that year, it was announced that a new walk animating method would be tested and, if successful, would be implemented for Season 2. The new method is designed to make walking animations appear more-so as frame by frame, rather than smooth, to make the animations more consistent with the rest of the show's animation. If the test is successful, then the show will switch from 60fps to 30fps. Editing Segments, averaging 2-4 minutes each (though some can last as long as 6-7) are edited and rendered individually. When editing a scene, the first step is editing the audio. All of the mistakes and un-used takes are cut out and the audio is spliced together in what will become the final cut of the segment, though there have been instances where audio has been changed, sometimes rather drastically, even in later stages. After the audio is fully edited, the backdrops are then selected. This stage determines when the scene will cut to another angle of the room or area the scene takes place in, although regarding scenes where characters stand and face each other and shown from the side, they are all in the same shot together, and cutting/framing back and forth takes place later. Next is the addition of the characters, including any walking and moving animations. Finally, the mouths are animated onto the characters. When the characters are created in MS paint, there mouths, with seldom exception, do not have any mouths at all, as they are added and animated separately after the characters themselves. Each characters requires two visual tracks in Vegas 13, one for the character, and the other for the mouths. Due to the limit of visual tracks that can be used at once, a scene may have to be spliced together when many characters are featured on screen simultaneously. This was required in "Death on Behalf of my Wife's Birthday", when the very last scene featured five characters on screen at once: (from left to right) Randy, Lenny, Jonah, Katrina, and Martin. Randy, Lenny and Jonah were animated in once scene while Katrina and Martin in the other. The two individually rendered scenes were then spliced together in between Jonah and Katrina to create a single composite shot of all five characters. After the completion of each scene, it is reviewed for mistakes, then it is amended and re-rendered if necessary. Following the scene's review, it is then placed back into the editing program, where additional edits, such as cropping, take place. This is so that each scene can be cropped all together: if cropping was to be executed during the first editing stage, that would mean that each individual character, backdrop, and object would have to be cropped separately and consistently. Once each scene is cropped, the segments are then rendered again, this time collectively and becomes the file that is used for the actual episode's release. The individual segments and the compiled segments are rendered to the exact same format: Windows Media Video V11, 8 Mbps HD 1080-30p Video, for the sake of consistency. All episodes of the show are rendered to 1080p HD in the 16:9 aspect ratio. For the first season, episodes were rendered to 60fps, before switching to 30fps for the second season. Format Each episode of The Lenny Leggo Show lasts approximately 23-28 minutes, thus filling an average length for a sitcom. Prologue Most episodes begin with a short prologue, usually about three minutes or so in length, that set up the basic premise of the episode. The prologue is then followed by the opening disclaimer: "All characters in this show are, to some extent, idiots. Please do not attempt to use them as any public example of living in society, as the characters in this show repeatedly perform actions that would for sure kill the average human being. For example, do not ever, under any circumstance, attempt to consume $600 worth of fast food at once. Seriously, do not attempt, it's not worth it, do not be a hero. We are not responsible for serious injury or death caused from irresponsible viewing of this show. Please view this show responsibly. Also, we find it worth-noting, the over-concerned CEO told us to put this stupid retarded worthless Public Service Announcement at the beginning of this episode: So we did." Credits Each episode of the show ends with a credits scroll while accompanied by the song "Alcatraz" by "CUSCO". During the credits, a series of 15 random images from the preceding episode accompanies the credits as they scroll upwards. Each image (excluding very last one, which lasts longer to fade out the credits) lasts for the exact same amount of time. The images during the credits are from that preceding episode only, images from previous episodes are never re-used. Also, the images are shuffled and are not shown in the order that they appear in the episode. The credits themselves also alter with each episode. One example of this is the starring characters: only characters that actually appear in the episode are listed in the credits, in contrast to some shows, which will list off all main characters, even if they do not appear in that particular episode. Also, the credits list off any guest characters, even if they are one-time characters. Also, credits for companies that provide the show's sound effects, and in some cases, soundtracks, etc, are provided as well, if any are used. Because the actual running-time of the credits remains exactly the same with each episode, the speed at which the credits roll is never consistent and depends on how many credits are required for the episode. The more credits are necessary, the faster they scroll, and the less that are needed, the slower. After the credits, the "Clearsky Productions" logo is shown. The logo is a retro (comparatively speaking) logo created in the summer of 2012, recycled from the filmed based off of the old Lenny Lego Show. Despite not being used for a long time and even being previously replaced by two newer versions of the logo, it was resurrected for The Lenny Leggo Show. While the logo has been shortened from its original version, the full length version still exists and will likely be featured with any episode specials. Target Audience Similar to Regular Show, The Lenny Leggo Show, while it doesn't contain any strongly offensive or explicit content, is primarily aimed at teens and adults (about ages 15+). Characters Each character is drawn completely from scratch during original art conception. The said character is originally drawn in the "standing" position, with a normal facial expression. From there, additional sketches of the character are created by altering one or both of the arms and/or legs, as well as changing the character's facial expression, in necessary cases. Every one of these changes is saved into a new file of itself, thus, every character's position and facial expression combination is it's own unique file. Each character file is created with a solid background, which is then edited out using photoshop to create a PNG file for editing. The "rough" files, the ones still with their backgrounds, are not written over, so in the end, every character file has two files, one with a background, and one with a PNG. This is so that character files can be altered later if necessary. Characters originally featured large, black outlines. This was because they were used to construct the basic shape of the character before additional colors (such as clothing colors) were filled in. However, these outlines have since been removed. The mouths, however, are completely separate from the characters themselves. Characters are actually drawn without any mouths at all, and they are later added during the editing stage. The only exception to this fact is during certain scenes where a character performs a certain motion that is impractical to match the mouth movements for the character: for example, in Unhappy Birthday Martin Anderson, there is a scene where Martin quickly jumps out of the way as Johnson Freso comes crashing through his living room ceiling dressed as a clown. The mouth was added to the file in this case as matching the mouth to the character's motion was impractical to match. The only time a mouth is part of the character itself is when it is mandatory. Originally, characters would take a full day, sometimes more, to create. Now, characters can be created, if need-be, in about an hour, some in as little as 15-30 minutes. In 2017, several character had their designs refurbished for Season 2. As part of the refurbishments, eye brows were added to characters that previously lacked them, which in turn created opportunities to incorporate more facial expressions into the show. All characters were re-tooled to become fully symmetric, except for hair in some cases. Vehicles There are, so far, five different types of vehicles that either have been or will be created for the show, for various purposes: Standard, 2 door truck, extended cab truck, 4 door truck, and SUV. Each vehicle is traced out once, then recolored into various colors for additional vehicles. There are three shots of each vehicle: front, rear, and side. Each vehicle is created facing the left side and is horizontally flipped to create the file for the right side facing vehicle, although some minor details, such as antenna placement, may have be changed in this process. All side images of each car have two versions, one with a visible tire design, and another with the rim a solid color, to give it the illusion of the car in motion for necessary scenes. License plates in The Lenny Leggo Show are always portrayed as containing nothing but question marks. This is actually for two reasons: privacy, as well as the fact that the license plates are drawn along with the vehicle itself, therefore using different numbers for every different vehicle would be impractical, although a numbered license plate may perhaps be used later on if such a plate were to be necessary for a plot. Thumbnails The first four episodes of the series use a standardized thumbnail, a photo of Lenny and Katrina with a generic red background. The only changes made between episodes are the episode title and number displayed at the bottom of the thumbnail. However, in November 2016, this thumbnail system was discontinued in favor of a new system of thumbnails designed to be themed to that episode specifically. For example, Thanksgiving Kerfuffle uses a non-animated photo of a Thanksgiving turkey, which is, as previous thumbnails were, accompanied by the show's logo and episode number and title. Depending on the picture, the logo and number/title may be shown in different positions on the picture. "Censoring" While the show does contain mild language, stronger language is always censored out with an audio bleep, while the cursing character's mouth is obscured by a "color bars" rectangle. Curse words are never actually spoken during recording, but the sound of the first word's letter is usually emphasized just before the bleep, so the character is heard pronouncing the first letter of a said curse word, which is immediately followed by the audio bleep. Like most censored TV shows, the audio bleep is a 1,000 Hz tone. Airing The series began airing on June 22nd 2016 and continues to present day. Demographs Countries The United States is The Lenny Leggo Show's most popular audience, with February 2017's United States audience accounting for 85% of the show's views. The second most popular audience is the United Kingdom, accounting for 24% of the views for that same month. Strangely enough, despite the United States being the show's most popular audience, Canada was shown in February to account for only 0.8% of the total viewership, while Mexico even less than that. Gender The Lenny Leggo Show has almost always been more popular among male audiences than female. In January 2017, statistics showed that up to 95% of the show's viewers were male, thus, only 5% constituted as female. However, the following month in February, female viewership increased by nearly 20% from the previous month, rising to 32%, almost 1/3, of the total viewership of that month. Possible Spin-offs The upcoming YouTube series Desktop Tales is considered to be a spin-off of The Lenny Leggo Show, as it will be set in the same fictionalized universe. It was set to take place in the same universe as "The Lenny Lego Show", prior to its cancellation. The series is presently on hold, but is not cancelled. There is the possibility of a prequel series called "Lenny Leggo Origins". The series would serve as a prequel to "The Lenny Leggo Show", and would likely debut with Lenny first moving to Skyler City. It would also cover the arrival of other main characters, including Randy Stallone. In the series, Lenny himself would also be included as a roommate with Jonah and Martin, as the three did all live together at one point in time. Lenny would move out after he married Katrina, leaving only the cousins. A possible Jonah Flenderson spin-off series has been considered also. Potential Film A film based off of the series is presently being considered. The film would serve loosely as a reboot of the film series that was connected with the Lenny Lego series and would have no continuity to it whatsoever. The film would most likely be a prequel film, set before the events of the show itself, possibly covering Lenny's arrival to Skyler City and marriage to Katrina, unless the prequel series does this instead. On September 4th 2016, the credits for The Biffy Martona Chronicle were rendered to 24fps (once in a Vegas Movie Studio project with the settings at 24fps, and again at 30fps rendered to 24fps) to test out what the show would look like translated into film. The film would be rendered to 24fps, as opposed to the show, which is rendered to 60fps, to produce a more cinematic feel. In January 2017, Aaron Cosby stated that a film with a release date following the conclusion of Season 2 was possible. Name Confusion Even after the conversion from "Lego" to "Leggo", many people have incorrectly referred to the show, as well as the character, as "Lego", possibly due to the fact that "Leggo" has the exact same pronunciation and very similar spelling to "Lego". This has further lead to speculation that "Leggo" is actually a typo. Trivia * Although he credits himself as such, Aaron Cosby's last name is, in reality, not "Cosby". Rather, this is merely his credited name. The name "Cosby" is derived from his old YouTube channel name "Cosby The Caterpillar" (which was renamed to "ClearSky Productions" in June 2016). Presently, his true last name has not been defined. Gallery in the background. 2016-2017]] Category:Official Lenny Leggo Series